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Malware
Android
SOVA
Banker


SOVA MALWARE IS BACK AND IS EVOLVING RAPIDLY

PUBLISHED:

11/8/22

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INTRODUCTION

In September 2021, SOVA, a new Android Banking Trojan, was announced in a known
underground forum. Even though at that time the author claimed the malware was
still under development, it actually already had multiple capabilities and was
basically almost in the go-to market phase.

Furthermore, the authors of SOVA showed a roadmap with the future update of the
malware as shown in Figure 1.


Figure 1 – Roadmap of SOVA (September 2021)

Until March 2022, multiple versions of SOVA were found and some of these
features were already implemented, such as: 2FA interception, cookie stealing
and injections for new targets and countries (e.g. multiple Philippine banks).

In July 2022, we discovered a new version of SOVA (v4) which presents new
capabilities and seems to be targeting more than 200 mobile applications,
including banking apps and crypto exchanges/wallets.


Figure 2 – Main countries targeted by SOVA v4


UPDATES - SOVA V4

Starting from May 2022, Threat Actors (TAs) behind SOVA have started to deliver
a new version of their malware, hiding within fake Android applications that
show up with the logo of a few famous ones, like Chrome, Amazon, NFT platform or
others.


Figure 3 – Main icons used by SOVA v4

Differently from the previous versions, this time several new codes were added.
The most interesting part is related to the VNC capability. As shown in Figure
1, this feature has been in the SOVA roadmap since September 2021 and that is
one strong evidence that TAs are constantly updating the malware with new
features and capabilities.

Starting from SOVA v4, TAs can obtain screenshots of the infected devices, to
retrieve more information from the victims. Furthermore, the malware is also
able to record and obtain any sensitive information, as shown in Figure 5. These
features, combined with Accessibility services, enable TAs to perform gestures
and, consequently, fraudulent activities from the infected device, as we have
already seen in other Android Banking Trojans (e.g. Oscorp or BRATA).

With SOVA v4, TAs are able to manage multiple commands, such as: screen click,
swipe, copy/paste and the capability to show an overlay screen to hide the
screen to the victim. However, it was observed that multiple logs information
are still sent back to the C2. This behavior is a strong indicator that SOVA is
still going through a development process, while TAs are rolling out new
features and capabilities.


Figure 4 – Code comparison between SOVA v3 and v4

Figure 5 – Casting/Recording feature of SOVA v4

Moreover, in SOVA v4, the cookie stealer mechanism was refactored and improved.
In particular, TAs specified a comprehensive list of Google services that they
are interested to steal (e.g. Gmail, GPay, and Google Password Manager), plus a
list of other applications. For each of the stolen cookies, SOVA will also
collect additional information such as “is httpOnly”, its expiration date, etc.


Figure 6 – Refactoring and improvement of the cookie stealer mechanism in SOVA
v4

Another interesting update about SOVA v4 is the refactoring of its “protections”
module, which aims to protect itself from different victim’s actions. For
example, if the user tries to uninstall the malware from the settings or
pressing the icon, SOVA is able to intercept these actions and prevent them
(through the abuse of the Accessibilities) by returning to the home screen and
showing a toast (small popup) displaying “This app is secured”.


Figure 7 – “Protections” code comparison between SOVA v3 and v4

A peculiarity of SOVA v4 is the “core” relocation of the malware. Like the main
Android banking trojan, SOVA uses the .apk just to unpack a .dex file which
contains the real malicious functionalities of the malware. In the previous
version, SOVA stored the .dex file inside the directory of the app, while in the
current version it uses a device's shared storage directory (“Android/obb/”) to
store it.

Lastly, in SOVA v4, an entire new module was dedicated to Binance exchange and
the Trust Wallet (official crypto wallet of Binance). For both applications, TAs
aim to obtain different information, like the balance of the account, different
actions performed by the victim inside the app and, finally, even the seed
phrase (a collection of words) used to access the crypto wallet.


C2 COMMUNICATIONS AND PANEL

The communications between SOVA v4 and the C2 didn’t change compared to the
previous version (v3), except for the new command (vncinfo) used for its new VNC
feature. Meanwhile, also the C2 panel of SOVA was updated compared to the first
version published by the author in September 2021, with some new features and a
complete UI restyle (as shown in Figure 8).


Figure 8 – Comparison between SOVA C2 panels

Figure 9 – Comparison between SOVA configuration files


NEW TARGETS

The first version of SOVA had almost 90 targeted applications (including banks,
crypto wallet/exchange, and generic shopping apps), initially listed and stored
in the packageList.txt file within the assets/ folder. In the latest samples,
this file has been removed and the targeted applications are managed through the
communications between the malware and the C2.

The number of targeted applications has grown faster, compared to the initial
phases of SOVA: during March 2022 multiple Philippine banks have been added and
then during May 2022, another list of banking applications has been added too,
as shown in the following Figure 10.


Figure 10 – Comparison between SOVA targets, from September 2021 to July 2022

To obtain the list of targeted applications, SOVA sends the list of all
applications installed on the device to the C2, right after it has been
installed. At this point, the C2 sends back to the malware the list of addresses
for each targeted application and stores this information inside an XML file.


Figure 11 – Example of communication between SOVA v4 and the C2 server

Figure 12 – Example of fake page used to steal credentials and credit card
information

Another interesting fact is that, in some of the analyzed samples of SOVA v4,
the list of CIS region used in the previous versions (used to exclude these
countries from attacks) was removed and, at the time of writing, all the initial
Russian and Ukraine targeted apps were removed.


Figure 13 – List of CIS region remove in one of the sample of SOVA v4


FURTHER UPDATES - SOVA V5

During the reviewing of the document on SOVA v4, we spotted on our threat
intelligence platform (Cleafy ASK) multiple samples that seem to belong to a
further variant of SOVA (v5); we want to provide you with an overview of this
variant too.

Analyzing the code of the malware, it is possible to observe a big refactoring
of the code, the addition of new features and some small changes in the
communications between the malware and the C2 server. Furthermore, the samples
of SOVA v5 that we analyzed don’t present the VNC module that we observed in
SOVA v4: our hypothesis is that it was simply not integrated in the v5version
yet. In fact, the malware seems to be still under development, due to the
presence of multiple logs used for debugging.


Figure 14 – List of commands of SOVA v5

Although there are several changes, the most interesting features added in SOVA
v5 is the ransomware module, that was announced in the roadmap of September
2021.

However, even though this feature has been already implemented in the current
version (v5), at the time of writing it seems to be still under development.

The aim of TAs is to encrypt the files inside the infected devices through an
AES algorithm and renaming them with the extension “.enc”.

The ransomware feature is quite interesting as it’s still not a common one in
the Android banking trojans landscape. It strongly leverages on the opportunity
arises in recent years, as mobile devices became for most people the central
storage for personal and business data.


Figure 15 – Ransomware module of SOVA v5


CONCLUSIONS

With the discovery of SOVA v4 and SOVA v5, we uncovered new evidence about how
TAs are constantly improving their malware and the C2 panel, honouring the
published roadmap.

Although the malware is still under development, it’s ready to carry on
fraudulent activities at scale.

‍

APPENDIX 1: IOCS

IoC Description 0533968891354ac78b45c486600a7890 SOVA v4
ca559118f4605b0316a13b8cfa321f65 SOVA v4 without CIS regions
socrersutagans.]site C2 of SOVA v4 omainwpatnlfq.]site Server used to display
fake website of targeted app 74b8956dc35fd8a5eb2f7a5d313e60ca SOVA v5
satandemantenimiento.com C2 of SOVA v5 http://wecrvtbyutrcewwretyntrverfd.xyz C2
of SOVA v5





MEET THE AUTHORS

Francesco Iubatti
Mobile Malware Analyst & Threat Intelligence Analyst

Federico Valentini
Head of Threat Intelligence and Incident Response

ARTICLE CONTENT

IntroductionUpdates - SOVA v4C2 communications and panelNew TargetsFurther
updates - SOVA v5Conclusions

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